A specially interesting tract, published in 1786, entitled “Thoughts on Inclosures, by a Country Farmer,” gives a detailed account of the results of one case of enclosure. The locality is not named, but it is pretty clear that it was within this Midland country in which enclosure was attended by the conversion of arable to pasture. On the general question the writer says:--“To obtain an Act of Parliament to inclose a common field, two witnesses are produced, to swear that the lands thereof, in their present state, are not worth occupying, though at the same time they are lands of the best soil in the kingdom, and produce corn in the greatest abundance, and of the best quality. And by inclosing such lands, they are generally prevented from producing any corn at all, as the landowner converts twenty small farms into about four large ones, and at the same time the tenants of those large farms are tied down in their leases not to plough any of the premises, so lett to farm,[46] by which means of several hundred villages, that forty years ago contained between four and five hundred inhabitants, very few will now be found to exceed eighty, and some not half that number; nay some contain only one poor decripid man or woman, housed by the occupiers of lands who live in another parish, to prevent them being obliged to pay towards the support of the poor who live in the next parish” (p. 2). The profit of enclosing, he maintains, was dependent upon simultaneous conversion into pasture, for “In some places the lands inclosed do not answer the ends of pasturage, and in that case tillage is still to be pursued; because the rents cannot be raised so high as in respect of pasturage, therefore the landowner has not the advantage as in case the land turns out fit for pasturage, and is oftener the loser by that proceeding than the gainer.”[46] [46] Arthur Young (“Eastern Tour,” 1771, p. 96) remarks that in Leicestershire “Landlords in general will not allow an inch to be ploughed on grazing farms.” The particular enclosure he cites is that of a parish enclosed about forty years previously. Before enclosure it contained eighty-two houses, of which twenty were small farms and forty-two were cottages with common rights. It had 1800 acres of common field arable, 200 acres of rich common cow pasture, and 200 acres of meadow, commonable after hay harvest. The common pasture fed two hundred milch cows and sixty dry ones till hay harvest, at which time they were turned into the meadows, and their place taken by about one hundred horses. Twelve hundred sheep were fed on the stubbles. The gross produce of the parish before enclosure he values as follows:-- £ _s. d._